“We can be more than just an awards’ show. We can help artists get to the Juno stage.” That’s the spirit of the Allan Straight JUNO Master Class.

The JUNOs put JUNO Award winners Sam Roberts, Max Kerman of Arkells, and Kardinal Offishall, in a room with producer Gavin Brown, A&R representative Ali Slaight, and President of CARAS Allan Reid, to adjudicate 10 promising new Canadian artists, including Newfoundland’s own Repartee and Fortunate Ones.

The video above is the deliberation of selecting 3 rising star Canadian bands from a talented pool of 10. Newfoundland’s Fortunate Ones were one of the three. The Master Class aims to provide the crucial tools to help the three finalists develop their careers, build their own sustainable business, and become “JUNO ready.”

As Max Kerman from Arkells says, he was drawn to this initiaitve because it took his own band 8 or 9 years to develop the body of knowledge they have now “and there are a lot of lessons that would have been nice to have learned earlier on in the process.”

The inaugural Master Class includes a week-long customized artist development program co-developed with Canada’s Music Incubator at Coalition Music. This development program provides hands-on mentoring, networking and collaboration opportunities.

“People can’t do it by themselves, no one has ever done it by themselves,” says music producer Gavin Brown, and Ali Slaight of Slaight Music says, “This day and age, with the music industry being how it is, there’s not a lot of resources for new musicians to try and get their foot in the door.”

This program will educate the three finalists – Fortunate Ones, Slow Leaves, and Derrival – on different revenue streams for artists, how to network, work within the industry, work with producers, and so on. In short, as Kardinall Official says, this will “further people along, quicker.”

HMV will host a final showcase for the artists, and Twitter & Facebook want to do a “social media audit” for the bands. Here’s The Fortunate Ones’ “The Bliss,” as they’re probably feeling pretty Blissfull right now:

Get us In Your Social Media Feeds!

Looking for Something?

About the Paper

The Overcast is a multi-award-winning media body in St. John’s, NL.

Best known for its monthly print magazine, its website, TheOvercast.ca, also posts 1-2 articles a day, hoststhe St. John’s Eats dinning and review directory, and administers the $12,500 Albedo Grant to help entrepreneurs get their big idea off the ground, as well as Newfoundland’s richest award for a local album of the year: The Borealis Music Prize.